Wide on Saturday

[Fish-On]

A late report from Saturday.

Decided to go wide on Saturday in the hopes of landing some dollies and Marlin.

We wanted to hit the fad at before dawn so we stocked up on livies on Thursday arvo and kept them swimming in the live bait tank. It was hard going but we managed to bag about 20. Some of the smallest yakkas  I've ever seen had our hopes set high that the little Jellybeans would be irresistible.

left he marina at 4:45am Saturday and steamed out to the botany wide fad which we heard was holding some dollies. On the way there we went through a big bait ball and saw a free jumping Marlin of about 40kgs in about 100m. Did a couple of passes but couldn't interest him. Got to the fad to find 3 other boats there. Did 5 drifts throwing plastics, metal slices and livies with no takers. No one else was hooking up so moved on. Water temp was about 23degrees.

went a little wider and pulled skirts for 4 hours finding temp breaks which flucteraited between 23.5 and 24.5 degrees but unfortunately no takers. 

Went to longie to about 33m depth to catch a feed. Bagged a couple of just legal kingies on livies, lost some bigger models which bricked us. Two fins swam past both looked like whalers but weren't interested in the lump of bait we threw out. Flicking a soft plastic (nuclear chicken my favourite go to)   felt a good hit and solid weight, finally a decent fish. Was thinking a snapper then up comes a tank of a grouper. Put up a good fight and a first for me of this species. Went 77cm; was surprised to see it was a female at that size. Then we trolled home for two Bonnies. 

All in all not a completely lost day, at least we came home for a feed.

Did hear of a couple of small blacks being landed in close around Barrenjoey.